The Wasp, 1913 · page 213 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 213: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page appears to be prose fiction rather than a cartoon—specifically, a narrative passage from a serialized story in *The Wasp* magazine featuring pirates or seafaring men. The story concerns a captain (apparently named Trimmer) who has taken a woman (formerly belonging to "Hellfire Hicks") as his own without consulting his crew who did the fighting. His men are resentful and disillusioned—they risked their lives but see him enjoying the spoils, particularly the woman's company and possessions, while planning to marry her with a Spanish bishop's blessing. Trimmer recognizes the crew's discontent but pretends indifference. The passage ends with crew member Wells sarcastically suggesting the woman has already made their captain a fool. The satire appears to target masculine vanity and the chaos when authority figures prioritize personal desires over crew loyalty and fairness—a common theme in adventure fiction of this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
208 THE WASP ment and ceremony of marriage would be per- formed in half an hour’s time by his reverence, the Spanish bishop. The gentlemen of fortune received the glad news sullenly. They were heavy of head and stomach. They were in no mood for jokes or sentiment. They had seen the hand of their cap- tain falter. They were disillusioned. They stared gloomily at their commander, re- flecting that life was no joke for them, whatever it might be for him. He had taken no wound yester- day, they told themselves; but he had taken Hell- fire Hicks’s mistress and wardrobe without so much as by your leave to the stout lads who had done the bloody work-on the Black Polly’s deck. Trimmer was quick to see the trouble. He knew that he had been guilty of a grave mistake in not having struck Welsh Owen to the deck at the time of the knife-play. But he pretended to see nothing critical or unusual in the attitude of his comrades. He bowed, waved a hand, and went below. “The wench has made a monkey of him already,” muttered Wells. : Comichooks.com